European Parliament
committee adopts highly critical report on EU-US passenger name
record data (PNR)On Thursday 18 March the Citizens' Rights Committee
adopted a draft resolution by Johanna Boogerd-Quaak (ELDR, NL)
on the transfer of personal passenger data to the United States
by 25 votes to 9 with 3 abstentions. The report will now go to
the parliament's plenary on Wednesday 24 March.

The report is highly critical of the deal done by the Commission
and calls for it to withdraw its finding of "adequacy"
on the "Undertakings" set out in the Agreement. The
MEPs warn the Commission that they reserve the right to appeal
to the Court of Justice should the Commission continue without
taking account of Parliament's demands.

It is to be expected that MEPs will come under strong pressure
from their national governments to reverse this decision at the
plenary session.

Passenger data on transatlantic flights: MEPs keep up their
opposition

The Citizens' Rights Committee adopted a draft resolution by
Johanna Boogerd-Quaak (ELDR, NL) on the transfer of personal
passenger data to the United States by 25 votes to 9 with 3 abstentions
on Thursday 18 March 2004.

In the course of 2003, the European Commission worked out
a draft agreement with the US on the obligations for European
air carriers. MEPs object to the following points in the draft
agreement:

the number of PNR items (34) the US wants to obtain;
the purposes for which the data might be used (not only for fighting
terrorism, but also for fighting "serious crime");
the lack of redress mechanisms for people who are denied entry
to the US on the basis of the information in the PNR records;
the lack of opportunities for passengers to correct errors in
their personal data;
the fact that a "pull" instead of a "push"
system is used to obtain the data, meaning that the US does not
have to ask for the data but has immediate access to it;
the number and kind of agencies that have access to the personal
data.
In the draft resolution, MEPs point out that there exists no
specific EU legislation for using PNR data for public security
purposes and that, in the USA, the protection of privacy is not
regarded as a fundamental right. In the USA, only US citizens
are granted the right to data protection.

MEPs see the draft decision as unreliable, since it keeps
open the option of amending the rules at any given time. They
consider the importance of the issue to be such that they urge
the Commission to reach a proper international agreement with
the US that would offer genuine guarantees for passengers or,
at the very least, the same protection as provided for US citizens.
Such an agreement would need to stipulate:

the guarantees to be offered to passengers in order to enable
them to correct their data;
the list of serious crimes for which an additional request for
information could be made;
the list of authorities and agencies which would share the data
and the data protection conditions to be respected;
the data retention period;
the right to appeal to an independent authority and redress mechanisms
in the event of infringements of passengers' rights.

Pending a permanent legislative solution or the conclusion of
an international agreement, the committee calls upon the Member
States to require immediate compliance with EU and domestic privacy
laws and to require airlines and travel agencies to obtain passengers'
consent for the transfer of data. Furthermore, MEPs urge the
Commission to block the pull system and to apply the push system.

The Commission is also asked to withdraw the draft decision
and to submit to Parliament a new adequacy-finding decision.
MEPs warn the Commission that they reserve the right to appeal
to the Court of Justice should the Commission continue without
taking account of Parliament's demands.

On Wednesday, the Citizens' Rights Committee held an exchange
of views with Stewart VERDERY, assistant secretary at the US
Department of Homeland Security. Mr Verdery was the lead negotiator
for the US on the agreement with the European Commission. Mr
Verdery had a clear message for Parliament: he said that air
carriers were already transferring personal data and that at
the moment no rules on the storage or use of data were in place.
Parliament would be well advised to prefer the draft agreement
the US and the Commission had reached to no agreement at all.Statewatch News
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